My (Post) Formative Years: "Stars And Sons" by Broken Social Scene, 2003

This week, another special edition of My Formative Years finds Rusty going ad nauseum about the greatest pop single (in his opinion.)

Never will I ever forget the first time I heard "Stars And Sons."

(Pauses. Puts song on. Contnues.)

I remember being in my old basement bedroom and "Stars And Sons" came on the radio. It would be my first experience with Broken Social Scene. Brendan Canning's inhales before he delivers the deepest vocal I think I have ever heard. That bass line. That bass line, so intense, such a grooved, etched in to my memory deeper than any etching on the side of a vinyl record. The words, at times, seemed jumbled yet they were not. He seemed incoherent, yet all clear at the same time.

The handclap is the cheapest instrument in the world, and boy did they utilize that. I remember when I finally saw them in October 2005, I clapped that entire part out during the song. My hands hurt afterward but boy was it worth it. I wasn't alone, as when I obtained a copy of the bootleg the crowd did clap along like me, even when the second verse started.

That neverending outro. The last 1:55 of that song is just so intense, even though it's just a carbon copy of the rest of the song. It shows that repitition is such an easy, sustainable, catchy mechanism in pop music. With that groovy baseline and looped drum beat, it left the rest of the Canadian collective to squeal out of their guitars, make other noises, clap some more. And then the drum beat finally changes, the groove is broken, and all comes to a screeching hault. The finally syncopated clapping pattern draws to a close as the stars fall from the night sky and bring in the morning.

Because audio always needs visual to compliment:



Buy: You Forgot It In People [here]